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la-z-boy design dash

November 5, 2013 by ashley @ the handmade home

Obligatory preface: This is a very long and super fun story, with lots of eye candy. Or at least we think so. Just a heads up if you’re secretly reading this at work or in the pantry while you hide from your kiddos and eat their Halloween candy. (I mean, I never do that.) So sit back, pull up a comfy seat, a cup of coffee + more chocolate. We hope you enjoy!

(If the video isn’t loading for you, hit refresh – you don’t want to miss this one… I’ve been giggling with excitement and watching it secretly every time Jamin leaves the room. I’m kind of like Mike from Monster’s Inc, when he’s thrilled to be on the magazine cover even though the barcode covers his face. If they smack a barcode in a video somewhere, it doesn’t matter. We’re just happy to be there.)

Last week, I think we can easily say we had one of the most incredible experiences we’ve had since starting our little old corner of the internet. You may have seen our Twitter and Instagram feed all a flutter with excitement.

But let me start at the beginning.

A few months ago, when La-Z-Boy invited us to the High Point Market to be a part of something, we weren’t really sure what to expect. We ventured to a local store here, and were told that we could pick a sofa, any sofa. Literally. It was like this nerd dream come true where we could choose anything.

When we arrived in North Carolina, we were whisked away to The Proximity Hotel. Since again, we’ve established that we’re total nerds and don’t really get out much, I decided to humor all of you and take a few photos of our space. The bathroom had a secret passageway and the chairs made me drool.

Oh, and that chandy almost disappeared and came home with us. We had a little time to get ready for dinner, and after a brief super-fun reception, we were ushered into this space. Timed right on cue for a gorgeous sunset.

Advertisement

Wow. Just wow. Right? Kinda made me want to get married again. Or something.

Here, the President (Mark Bacon) gave us a great background to their company. La-Z-Boy is clearly a household name, and we were amazed by all the hard work and the great people behind it. We dined on some great comfort foods (Get it? See what they did there?) local to North Carolina. Also in our company: The VP, a wonderful team from La-Z-Boy, designers, and members from the fabulous PR team, to name a few. Also known as the nicest people ever.

So it was yours (us) truly + nine other bloggers, and this beautiful setting. Kind of awesome, right?

Just wait. It gets better.

Side note: The graphic design nerd in me had to photograph our place settings. A lot of effort went into every single detail, and it did not go unnoticed. I need that font, and I may or may not have (at their invitation) slipped these place holders into my bag. The little houses were decorated with different patterns from their own fabrics. The entire table done in their fabrics. Oh so clever. Thanksgiving ideas, anyone?

In case you’re wondering, we were definitely ooh-ing and ahhh-ing (and stuffing our faces) at this point. But we still had no idea what we were about to do. We felt like we were part of an elaborate mystery dinner. Or Candid Camera. Up until now, all we know is that we were told to choose a sofa, and a paint color and to bring comfy shoes in case we had to kick someone in the face. That’s it. (Okay. Minus the kicking and the face part. That was totally all me.)

After dinner, we were driven to the actual market area, where La-Z-Boy had two floors full of their latest and greatest products. They even had this awesome wall with our faces on it, and I think we all had this giddy fun, our-faces-are-on-a-wall-at-High-Point kinda moment. I mean, we were all taking photos of it and posing beside it so I guess you could say we were kind of excited or something.

Oh, Ps. Kelly Edwards was there. You may recognize her from a number of things – mainly HGTV. She was kind of like the hostess for the entire event, and this is a shot of her (the two photos below unabashedly stolen from Southern Hospitality-I kind of forgot to snap a few – Thanks Rhoda!) right before we were told what was going on. (Pssst- Have you guys seen Kelly’s beautiful book?)

Oh, and PS. We were given tags. At this point it was explained that we had to literally dash through the showroom, and grab whatever we could. From this, we would design a space. It started to dawn on us the use of the word DASH in the event name. Things were officially interesting.

PPS. I like to process things. It’s my personality. This made me a good kind of nervous. Jamin was just there for the ride. He doesn’t get nervous. Ying and Yang.

PPPS. It’s the most fun we’ve ever had.

It was literally on your mark, get set, go. And we were off. We had a great little team with a little grocery cart and everything. We even had the help of a wonderful La-Z-Boy designer who knew their product (Woot Woot – Vanessa!) Chairs. Rugs. Tables. Art. It was a mad dash to grab whatever we could for our space. I always wanted to be on Super Market sweep but the toys version they had, as a child. This was like that, but with major eye candy for adults. And more elbows.

Jamin was excited about the elbows.

Bucket list checked.

See that orange piece of paper on his sleeve? Jamin may or may not have tagged the president.

He still hasn’t been delivered to our door. We have no idea why.

When time was up, we went back to the hotel that night, and had the evening to recover. The next morning, we were ushered to a studio.

They even had director’s chairs with our name on them. I’ve always wanted a director’s chair with my name on it. They now reside in our home, and we sit in them and boss the kids around. It’s amazing.

And all our goodies were delivered to our little studio space.

(Oh, and I’ve always wanted to be a set designer. La-Z-Boy is like, making all my dreams come true and stuff.)

Each room for each blogger/designer was different. Each one came with it’s own set of obstacles to tackle. We had what we could tag to work with. We were a little intimidated by those windows, but welcomed the challenge. We even had this secret moment where we were all, chest-bump. Let’s do this. (And then he knocked me to the ground because he’s considerably larger than me.)

We loved this space so much, it was kind of hard for us to leave it behind. We were asked to name our space. Metallic grass cloth wallpaper? Star chart (remember how I was just drooling over those?!)? Glass lady? Rad orange chair? Awesome chandelier? Yes please.

We dubbed it the “Global Cocktail”.

When we were finished, we were able to work with a great professional photographer and look for any problems on screen from our vantage point.

It was an incredible learning experience, to say the least.

Before, when we thought of La-Z-Boy, we pictured tufty recliners from the 80’s. They’ve come a long way in a gorgeous array of choices for the home.

Message received.

Did we mention you guys totally helped us win our sofa?! We got some major shout outs on twitter, and you’re kind of amazing. No, really. Thank you. We get to bring this baby home and I can’t wait to show you where we put her. She’s going to be great friends with Duncan and Chessy. I say it’s sofa karma for all the slipcover carnage in our history. Also, I name my sofas. There was an angel choir and everything.

I’ll be back to share a little more with you guys when it’s time, along with the other fab rooms these great bloggers created. This is kind of a national event. Did you see that (awesome) video at the top? There will be mini webisodes of our little adventure, and you can vote on their site beginning November 11, 2013 – December 20th, for the best room. But we’ll have more on that later humor us and stay tuned? (Flutters lashes oh so shamelessly)

A little info on this space in case you’re curious: It’s the Kinsley sofa in fabrics: SD6ZD996796 (blue) SM6ZD107576 (grey welting) And the paint is Sherwin Williams Dorian Gray

We can find out more about any of the other products, so let us know if you have questions, but all of this is La-Z-Boy!

what a super cool experience!! we just went to lazy boy while couch shopping (and while we didnt buy one of their couches–we couldnt find the one that was JUST right for our space darn it!) i was SO surprised that they were no longer fluffly recliners for grandma’s house. What a gorgeous room you created and i bet an amazing event. Lucky duck!

I’m a big fan of Lay-Z-Boy quality and comfort and am so excited they are starting to get in the game with fashion to pair with their quality and comfort. My big request is that they design a rocking recliner that’s just as fashionable. I’m a mama with 6 babies and looks like grand-children could come our way before I’m done rocking my own babies. We need rocking chairs in every room in our house. But there aren’t good choices stylistically yet.

Wow! Such a cool experience. I would’ve loved to have been a fly on the wall, observing all the decorating madness. Absolutely love your couch. If you ever get sick of it you know where to send it. Just saying. But the piece I really loved is the minty green shelving unit. That thing is fabulous. My neighbor works for Lazyboy. I wonder if we have that piece in Canada. I have no clue where I’d put it but I’m sure I could find a spot.

What a great room you guys put together! ( we all know who actually did 99% of the design!) It is FABULOUS, Ashley. Last week I read through all of your past sofa stories as I am on the hunt for a new one. OMG- what a daunting challenge. Your post is, as always, quite timely. There happens to be a LaZBoy store a mere one mile away from me and I’ve already been on the website (but I sure didn’t see the beauties in YOUR room)….and there happens to be a sale on. I’m going shopping!
Do you get any….uh…..well, anything if I mention your name?
You are a ROCKSTAR, lady! Everything you do is amazing.
Julie in Austin

He IRONS?????
How much do you love your mother-in-law?!
I’ve been married 28 years and I saw my dh ATTEMPT to iron a shirt once….I showed him how to do it and he wouldn’t know how to turn the iron ON!
And he has no idea how to run the washer!
Obviously, he has many other great qualities.
He IRONS? And he’s a great dad and a great husband? You do know how lucky you are, right? LOL.

I loved reading about your adventure!! The way you wrote about it was so humble and entertaining. Can just imagine taking it all in and feeling the same excitement. I have just started visiting different blogs and I just stumbled on yours today. So glad I did!

I fell in love at first site with the spindle armed multicolored houndstooth covered chair in one of the pics of your furniture ready to be staged in your design dash. I just went shopping for it on the lazyboy site and didn’t see that fabric as a choice and now when I go back and look closer I realize that chair never made it to your staged room. Is it because the fabric is no longer available? I hope not! It is stunning!

Hey Tara! Yes, We loved that chair too and totally wanted to use it! It just didn’t work with our design aesthetic. No worries though, because it’s SO new, it’s not available yet on their website. Stay tuned! ;} It should be available soon!

la-z-boy design dash

Obligatory preface: This is a very long and super fun story, with lots of eye candy. Or at least we think so. Just a heads up if you’re secretly reading this at work or in the pantry while you hide from your kiddos and eat their Halloween candy. (I mean, I never do that.) So sit back, pull up a comfy seat, a cup of coffee + more chocolate. We hope you enjoy!

(If the video isn’t loading for you, hit refresh – you don’t want to miss this one… I’ve been giggling with excitement and watching it secretly every time Jamin leaves the room. I’m kind of like Mike from Monster’s Inc, when he’s thrilled to be on the magazine cover even though the barcode covers his face. If they smack a barcode in a video somewhere, it doesn’t matter. We’re just happy to be there.)

Last week, I think we can easily say we had one of the most incredible experiences we’ve had since starting our little old corner of the internet. You may have seen our Twitter and Instagram feed all a flutter with excitement.

But let me start at the beginning.

A few months ago, when La-Z-Boy invited us to the High Point Market to be a part of something, we weren’t really sure what to expect. We ventured to a local store here, and were told that we could pick a sofa, any sofa. Literally. It was like this nerd dream come true where we could choose anything.

When we arrived in North Carolina, we were whisked away to The Proximity Hotel. Since again, we’ve established that we’re total nerds and don’t really get out much, I decided to humor all of you and take a few photos of our space. The bathroom had a secret passageway and the chairs made me drool.

Oh, and that chandy almost disappeared and came home with us. We had a little time to get ready for dinner, and after a brief super-fun reception, we were ushered into this space. Timed right on cue for a gorgeous sunset.

Advertisement

Wow. Just wow. Right? Kinda made me want to get married again. Or something.

Here, the President (Mark Bacon) gave us a great background to their company. La-Z-Boy is clearly a household name, and we were amazed by all the hard work and the great people behind it. We dined on some great comfort foods (Get it? See what they did there?) local to North Carolina. Also in our company: The VP, a wonderful team from La-Z-Boy, designers, and members from the fabulous PR team, to name a few. Also known as the nicest people ever.

So it was yours (us) truly + nine other bloggers, and this beautiful setting. Kind of awesome, right?

Just wait. It gets better.

Side note: The graphic design nerd in me had to photograph our place settings. A lot of effort went into every single detail, and it did not go unnoticed. I need that font, and I may or may not have (at their invitation) slipped these place holders into my bag. The little houses were decorated with different patterns from their own fabrics. The entire table done in their fabrics. Oh so clever. Thanksgiving ideas, anyone?

In case you’re wondering, we were definitely ooh-ing and ahhh-ing (and stuffing our faces) at this point. But we still had no idea what we were about to do. We felt like we were part of an elaborate mystery dinner. Or Candid Camera. Up until now, all we know is that we were told to choose a sofa, and a paint color and to bring comfy shoes in case we had to kick someone in the face. That’s it. (Okay. Minus the kicking and the face part. That was totally all me.)

After dinner, we were driven to the actual market area, where La-Z-Boy had two floors full of their latest and greatest products. They even had this awesome wall with our faces on it, and I think we all had this giddy fun, our-faces-are-on-a-wall-at-High-Point kinda moment. I mean, we were all taking photos of it and posing beside it so I guess you could say we were kind of excited or something.

Oh, Ps. Kelly Edwards was there. You may recognize her from a number of things – mainly HGTV. She was kind of like the hostess for the entire event, and this is a shot of her (the two photos below unabashedly stolen from Southern Hospitality-I kind of forgot to snap a few – Thanks Rhoda!) right before we were told what was going on. (Pssst- Have you guys seen Kelly’s beautiful book?)

Oh, and PS. We were given tags. At this point it was explained that we had to literally dash through the showroom, and grab whatever we could. From this, we would design a space. It started to dawn on us the use of the word DASH in the event name. Things were officially interesting.

PPS. I like to process things. It’s my personality. This made me a good kind of nervous. Jamin was just there for the ride. He doesn’t get nervous. Ying and Yang.

PPPS. It’s the most fun we’ve ever had.

It was literally on your mark, get set, go. And we were off. We had a great little team with a little grocery cart and everything. We even had the help of a wonderful La-Z-Boy designer who knew their product (Woot Woot – Vanessa!) Chairs. Rugs. Tables. Art. It was a mad dash to grab whatever we could for our space. I always wanted to be on Super Market sweep but the toys version they had, as a child. This was like that, but with major eye candy for adults. And more elbows.

Jamin was excited about the elbows.

Bucket list checked.

See that orange piece of paper on his sleeve? Jamin may or may not have tagged the president.

He still hasn’t been delivered to our door. We have no idea why.

When time was up, we went back to the hotel that night, and had the evening to recover. The next morning, we were ushered to a studio.

They even had director’s chairs with our name on them. I’ve always wanted a director’s chair with my name on it. They now reside in our home, and we sit in them and boss the kids around. It’s amazing.

And all our goodies were delivered to our little studio space.

(Oh, and I’ve always wanted to be a set designer. La-Z-Boy is like, making all my dreams come true and stuff.)

Each room for each blogger/designer was different. Each one came with it’s own set of obstacles to tackle. We had what we could tag to work with. We were a little intimidated by those windows, but welcomed the challenge. We even had this secret moment where we were all, chest-bump. Let’s do this. (And then he knocked me to the ground because he’s considerably larger than me.)

We loved this space so much, it was kind of hard for us to leave it behind. We were asked to name our space. Metallic grass cloth wallpaper? Star chart (remember how I was just drooling over those?!)? Glass lady? Rad orange chair? Awesome chandelier? Yes please.

We dubbed it the “Global Cocktail”.

When we were finished, we were able to work with a great professional photographer and look for any problems on screen from our vantage point.

It was an incredible learning experience, to say the least.

Before, when we thought of La-Z-Boy, we pictured tufty recliners from the 80’s. They’ve come a long way in a gorgeous array of choices for the home.

Message received.

Did we mention you guys totally helped us win our sofa?! We got some major shout outs on twitter, and you’re kind of amazing. No, really. Thank you. We get to bring this baby home and I can’t wait to show you where we put her. She’s going to be great friends with Duncan and Chessy. I say it’s sofa karma for all the slipcover carnage in our history. Also, I name my sofas. There was an angel choir and everything.

I’ll be back to share a little more with you guys when it’s time, along with the other fab rooms these great bloggers created. This is kind of a national event. Did you see that (awesome) video at the top? There will be mini webisodes of our little adventure, and you can vote on their site beginning November 11, 2013 – December 20th, for the best room. But we’ll have more on that later humor us and stay tuned? (Flutters lashes oh so shamelessly)

A little info on this space in case you’re curious: It’s the Kinsley sofa in fabrics: SD6ZD996796 (blue) SM6ZD107576 (grey welting) And the paint is Sherwin Williams Dorian Gray

We can find out more about any of the other products, so let us know if you have questions, but all of this is La-Z-Boy!

what a super cool experience!! we just went to lazy boy while couch shopping (and while we didnt buy one of their couches–we couldnt find the one that was JUST right for our space darn it!) i was SO surprised that they were no longer fluffly recliners for grandma’s house. What a gorgeous room you created and i bet an amazing event. Lucky duck!

I’m a big fan of Lay-Z-Boy quality and comfort and am so excited they are starting to get in the game with fashion to pair with their quality and comfort. My big request is that they design a rocking recliner that’s just as fashionable. I’m a mama with 6 babies and looks like grand-children could come our way before I’m done rocking my own babies. We need rocking chairs in every room in our house. But there aren’t good choices stylistically yet.

Wow! Such a cool experience. I would’ve loved to have been a fly on the wall, observing all the decorating madness. Absolutely love your couch. If you ever get sick of it you know where to send it. Just saying. But the piece I really loved is the minty green shelving unit. That thing is fabulous. My neighbor works for Lazyboy. I wonder if we have that piece in Canada. I have no clue where I’d put it but I’m sure I could find a spot.

What a great room you guys put together! ( we all know who actually did 99% of the design!) It is FABULOUS, Ashley. Last week I read through all of your past sofa stories as I am on the hunt for a new one. OMG- what a daunting challenge. Your post is, as always, quite timely. There happens to be a LaZBoy store a mere one mile away from me and I’ve already been on the website (but I sure didn’t see the beauties in YOUR room)….and there happens to be a sale on. I’m going shopping!
Do you get any….uh…..well, anything if I mention your name?
You are a ROCKSTAR, lady! Everything you do is amazing.
Julie in Austin

He IRONS?????
How much do you love your mother-in-law?!
I’ve been married 28 years and I saw my dh ATTEMPT to iron a shirt once….I showed him how to do it and he wouldn’t know how to turn the iron ON!
And he has no idea how to run the washer!
Obviously, he has many other great qualities.
He IRONS? And he’s a great dad and a great husband? You do know how lucky you are, right? LOL.

I loved reading about your adventure!! The way you wrote about it was so humble and entertaining. Can just imagine taking it all in and feeling the same excitement. I have just started visiting different blogs and I just stumbled on yours today. So glad I did!

I fell in love at first site with the spindle armed multicolored houndstooth covered chair in one of the pics of your furniture ready to be staged in your design dash. I just went shopping for it on the lazyboy site and didn’t see that fabric as a choice and now when I go back and look closer I realize that chair never made it to your staged room. Is it because the fabric is no longer available? I hope not! It is stunning!

Hey Tara! Yes, We loved that chair too and totally wanted to use it! It just didn’t work with our design aesthetic. No worries though, because it’s SO new, it’s not available yet on their website. Stay tuned! ;} It should be available soon!